Anna Polyviou's sweet trend predictions coming from Los Angeles

The rock'n'roll queen of pastries recently returned from a trip to LA, so 9Kitchen caught up with Anna Polyviou to see what trends we can expect to come our way.

"We based ourselves in LA [for the week] and it was a foodie tour of everything that's going on there right now," says sweets queen and dessert extraordinaire Anna Polyviou, explaining her recent trip to Los Angeles in the United States. "There's such a lot of hype around LA and its food right now. The aim was to come back really inspired. I'm really into the whole American feel, you know the basketball, the kicks and the food trucks – but I wanted to see what else was out there and what was coming."

Polyviou is known for her crazy desserts, including the now annual (and much anticipated) Sweet Street dessert festival, where everyone from MakMak Macarons to Adriano Zumbo shows off the craziest sweet things they have been working on.

"It just wasn't long enough," laments the mohawked celebrity chef of her whirlwind trip. "We tasted non-stop, all the different styles, from high-end to food-trucks, it was everything."

According to Polyviou, who has been to LA before and is already planning another trip, the city has a wide reaching reputation for food for a number of reasons, but the key factors include the multicultural nature of the people, the access to great produce and the extraordinary weather. So, not so different to some other great food capitals we know (Melbourne? Sydney? Just about anywhere in Australia… you feeling me?).

It's also because the city is open to trying new things according to the chef, which encourages a culture of creativity. No one is too scared to give a crazy idea a go, and everyone's ideas are different because there are so many people and cultural roots to draw on. "There're so many different nationalities," enthuses Polyviou. "The Mexican scene is very big there, we explored Koreatown and found a dessert culture there as well that was really interesting to see."

So given the heaving mass of food inspiration that she witnessed, here's what the pastry chef expects to see winging it to Australia in the coming months.

Polyviou's sweet predictions

More dragon's breath

"There's a place called Chocolate Chair, and they're massive," says Polyviou. It's their Dragon's Breath dessert that has put them on the map. At 9Kitchen we clocked the crazy dessert last year (including its pitfalls), but it's still going strong and looks like it's a treat that might spread. "They're basically cereal balls that have been thrown through nitrogen, and when you put it in your mouth you can blow the nitrogen steam or smoke out through your nose or mouth." For Polyviou it's the next step for nitro desserts that are already so popular here in Oz with nitro ice-creams. "It's a fun way to get more interest. There were huge lines for that place. It's great for social media and we know it's all about Instagram these days."

Pudding in a jar

Polyviou is all over this one, she even gave 9Kitchen a recipe for her orange and poppyseed cake in a jar last year, but she says it's going next level with pudding in LA. "I've always loved the idea of cake in a jar, but this is more like proper pudding, layered with sponge cake. It's more rustic than cake baked in a pot, and I like that. It's kind of making pudding cool again." Check out Polyviou's cake jar tutorial here.

Sweet sweet tacos

Sweet tacos are also on the radar. We've seen a couple here in Australia, more as a novelty than an actual dessert experience, but according to Polyviou they're very popular in LA and the varieties include everything from sweet cannoli style pastry to soft shells. Ice-cream tacos have been a thing for a while now, and there's no sign of it slowing. "You can fill them with just about anything sweet you want, but mostly people go for ice-cream and different toppings."

Sweet toasties and jaffles

Picture this, toasted sandwiches for your main meal… and then toasted sandwiches for dessert. Just, yes. "I'm planning to do these at Sweet Street this year," says the chef, citing jaffles filled with red bean paste, sweet almond paste and palm sugar to name a few. "It was kind of like a brioche style bread, but it was a bit of a secret and it looked like white sliced bread," she laughs. And no, there was no Nutella or chocolate in sight with this trend, there were just too many other options.

Sweet burgers

From tacos to jaffles and finally rounding out with sweet burgers, it looks like lunch favourites have well and truly made the conversion to dessert in the States. This is something I've developed further since I got back," says Polyviou. "I had an idea before I went, but I developed it more when I got back. People were doing more updated versions of burgers with gelato in them, so I thought it would be really cool to do it as a choux pastry burger." Check Polyviou's choux burger recipe with Expressi out and see the joy of cherry jelly layers in place of cheese on a burger bun.